At Any Rate, Let Us Love for a While
by o-seastarved
Summary: Accomplished author of exactly twelve short stories and a one-act play at twenty-seven, he had lived a lot of life. But today he remembered a time that seemed very long ago & he didn't know how it happened. So he took to his pen. Dan/Blair
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: My first GG fic in a long while. Dedicated to my new found home on the Dan and Blair thread over at fanforum. This will be a two-shot. Obviously as a disclaimer I own nothing. Enjoy! -Air_

* * *

_"At any rate, let us love for a while. For a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try." -F. Scott Fitgerald_

He couldn't tell you how it had happened, those four weeks during the summer of two thousand and ten, until he had written them down, pen to page and discovered each moment, each step. Dan Humphrey sometimes used an old typewriter when he wanted to be nostalgic; he said it made him feel like a real author. Something about the streamlined modernity of his MacBook didn't fit his mood. It was hot and all of New York sizzled with antiquity. He felt old. Accomplished author of exactly twelve short stories and a one-act play at twenty-seven, he had lived a lot of life. But today he remembered a time that seemed very long ago. He was freshly twenty, and he didn't know how it happened.

He dialed his phone and within two seconds of it registering he'd regretted it. He couldn't hang up now, his number would show.

"Well this is an unlikely and a not at all pleasant surprise." Her voice clipped in the sixteen-kilohertz quality of the signal.

"Blair," his voice dripped with ennui.

"You called me, Humphrey."

"Yeah. Yeah, so I was just wondering. Are you taking that 1920's American lit class next semester? Because seeing as you live the life of the lavish and disillusioned rich I thought you might, I don't know, be in to that sort of thing."

"I'm not following. Anyway, no matter. I'm transferring to Columbia."

"Oh."

"Oh? Humphrey, you're boring me."

"Listen, Blair….Want to get drunk tonight?"

He never could keep his mouth shut.

xoxo

The Jazz bar in SoHo was artier than her tastes, but classier and more upscale than his usual dives. Celebration was the pretext, but they both knew better. They were alone, oddly enough, together. So when he and Vanessa had hit a rough patch due to creative competition he wanted to be alone. And yet, there was something sickeningly repulsive to drinking solitary in a bar. He imagined he would have enough of that in his later years. He didn't want pity; he didn't want to talk to someone who cared. He'd seen her on campus in passing over the past few weeks and had noticed how small she had looked now. She seemed to be withering away. And he then would wonder why he noticed such things.

He drank beer and she dry gin martinis. She told him beer was crass and lowbrow. So he ordered two more. When the bar didn't have smoked almonds she rolled her eyes and said no wonder, since he had brought her there. He almost got angry, but then he remembered how mousy she had looked entering the bar, how unsure of herself, like the night they arrived at the rooftop party. She was insufferable and he laughed.

When they were drunk, good and proper, it was strange, but not altogether disconcerting.

"I don't dance," she'd declared, though he could not for the life of him remember how they got to this point in the dialogue.

"Sure you do. I've seen it."

"You have _not_ seen me dance, Humphrey. Galas and ballrooms aside."

"Oh, see that's funny you say that because I wasn't aware you knew there was another kind of dancing other than the foxtrot."

"Please."

"Ok, Ok. And the waltz, you're absolutely right."

"You're snark isn't as charming as you think it is."

"You're bite is positively as bad as your bark is," he'd replied in an instant. He was quick on the uptake.

He'd never seen her drunk before. He'd told her as such and she denied it. She was actually a high functioning alcoholic. And then she laughed at her own joke. He didn't understand her. She didn't giggle at it, nor giggle a lot. But rather, with more alcohol she became more intellectual. Her superiority was still in tact, but her openness to discussion let out a flood of knowledge, from Baudelaire to Bourdieu, and some non-French people too.

"I'm going to London in the fall," he let out quietly after an argument over skinny ties. "I got in to, uh, study there. Well, at Oxford so I- I guess not London."

"Humphrey," she began and leaned forward. "Here's the thing. And I'm going to be honest with you because I don't care about being nice to you."

"Noted." He nodded, his face the very picture of serious and attentive, his hand holding his jaw and his elbow on the mahogany table.

"While I maintain Serena was and is still worlds out of your league, you can do infinitely better than Vanessa Abrams."

"Well, Blair. Coming from you, I'd say that's about the nicest thing you could possibly bring yourself to say. Did it hurt?"

"Only a little." And she smiled.

For some reason that night, before the room started spinning, he lay in bed and wondered, but really somehow knew, that he had gotten her drunk enough to not think about Chuck before she went to sleep. It was an odd thought, and one he wouldn't remember in the morning.

xoxo

They seemed to find each other at Upper East Side gatherings from then on. She'd typically greet him among the hydrangeas and declare that his jacket was too beige, to be careful not to give in to tweed in London. Of course, before anyone knew, so he'd tell her to shut up and she'd spot the champagne from across the room. At brunch, he asked her if she'd already had her daily dose of girly evil when she hadn't touched a thing on her plate but for her mimosa. Vanessa snickered and thought it cute, while Blair remarked it was sub-par, even for him. At a glorified, catered outdoor barbeque gathering without any actual barbecue, they stood together side by side against the bar, shamelessly judging whoever happened to catch their eyes.

Looking back on that time, he guessed everyone seemed to take notice except for them. They weren't friends. They didn't like each other. And yet they'd spend minutes together, so many minutes here and there that they added up to a considerable mount of time.

When they showed up on Gossip Girl, Vanessa had thrown a fit. One that Dan found entirely without basis and which led Vanessa to leave for Vermont with no indication as to the status of their relationship. It didn't help that she'd recently decided to throw her phone in the Hudson for the summer, claiming that their summer was going to be free and disconnected. Come to think of it, the arrogance with which he handled the argument may not have helped the matter.

"If I were you, Humphrey, I'd be embarrassed that she dumped you. That's got to sting," Blair added a hiss as she strolled into the elevator with him, descending from the van der Humphrey's penthouse. "So what ran her out? Was it London?"

"No, actually. It was, uh, actually, it was…" he said finally, "…you."

He cleared his throat as they stood shoulder to shoulder, looking at the enamel of the elevator ceiling as people often do while riding one. And this one was always a long way down.

"Well, that's just, absurd," she said incredulously.

"That's what I said."

"Hm."

Her brow furrowed.

The elevator made a soft dinging sound every time it passed a floor. They remained silent through floors thirty-five to twenty nine. Somewhere between twenty-eight and twenty-three there was a flurry of movement, a sudden jolt that elevators rarely see, as they both collided together, like hot and cold air creating a storm. Arms wrapped around necks and hands grabbed hair and lips met.

The first kiss was feverish and pushed Dan against the wall of the elevator with its force. Her figure was flush against him, her small hands buried in his hair. When he felt it winding down his hands found her hips and flipped them around, so that he had Blair Waldorf, of all fucking people in the world, pinned between him and an elevator wall. His hands traced her curves lightly as they made their way up to her jaw line. His large hands framed her face, thumbs stroking behind her ears as the kiss became a second and a third and deepened and devoured. He almost pulled away for breath once but her hands fisted in the collar of his button down and held him in place. She was forceful and physical and tasted like mangos and summer.

When the loudest chime of the elevator rang and the gears and wheels began to hum and pull back the doors, they pulled apart with them. For a brief second they both remained in the box of the contraption. Dan reached a hand to the back of his head and scratched, a nervous habit. He dared to glance sideways for a brief second before Blair reached a hand out to stop the doors from closing and stepped out. Dan followed and countered her left with his right.

He supposes that's how it started.

xoxo


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: Here's part two and the conclusion to my little Dan/Blair ficlet. It probably seems like it could go on, but it is indeed finished! This whole thing was kind of stream of consciousness and it would be hard to go in a further direction with it. But trust me, I will be writing more DB, no worries! _

* * *

Some people will tell you a moment can last a lifetime. Some people say those moments add up and create snapshots of a fleeting time, but they're enough. Some days they aren't. It's true Dan never thought of that time chronologically, his memory would roam over clips and photos and yes, moments in no particular order. But once they were through, it seemed as if they were never enough. Instead of lasting a lifetime, they lasted seconds and then pulled at something in him similar to yearning or regret. He'd often take an aspirin; heartburn. Truth was, it was becoming less frequent lately.

It hadn't been this hot in the city in years. Seven years, to be exact.

"You look absolutely ridiculous in that hat, Waldorf."

Blair looked back at him, an oversized, floppy sun hat on her head, round bug like sunglasses shielding the sun from her eyes. He could feel her eyes rolling.

"I'm trying to avoid being seen with you, Humphrey," she snapped before sipping her lemonade through a bright pink straw.

"You're the one who wanted to go out."

"I never would have pegged you for an indoor cat." Her espadrilles pivoted on the pavement as she turned and continued her way down the sidewalk.

"And can you please stop walking five steps ahead of me?" But she didn't listen and the cuffs of her pink shorts hit just perfectly bellow the curve of her behind with each dainty step.

"Wow. And he says please. Tell me, where did you learn such refined etiquette having grown up in Brooklyn?"

Dan increased the pace of his steps and rushed to catch up with her. Once side by side, Blair remained focused straight ahead, so Dan stepped in front of her, walking backwards as she bulldozed forward.

"Hey, hey come on. Stop," he said and halted so that she nearly ran into him. His fingers laced around the brim of her floppy hat and pulled each side down to frame her face. "Come here," he said in a low voice before he leaned in and grazed her lips with his own.

When he pulled back a few inches to look at her, he said, "Don't worry, no one can see you. That hat was a good idea after all."

"Shut up, Humphrey. You talk too much," she replied and leaned in to kiss him again, deepening it this time and ignoring the passers by who had a problem with incognito PDA. The day was hot and humid and they could feel the heat between their lips, like burning. When she broke the kiss, finally, it was to meddle her straw up between them. She wrapped her lips in a circle around it and sipped daintily.

"Thanks for the lemonade, by the way," she said.

xoxo

He remembered how she purposely rummaged through his closet, choosing his best Versace button down to wear. It went perfectly with her sex hair, her Dior lip-gloss entitled "Audrey" and her La Perlas. She would tell him that while she had agreed to slip away with him in his bohemian bungalow, she'd never adopt the practices that accompanied it, like eating thai food from a plastic delivery box or wearing flannel. He found he realized he didn't want her to.

xoxo

The first time Blair burst into his solitary loft in Brooklyn, it had been tough getting her there.

"Good, you're here," Dan called out from the back room.

"So? What, are you going to make me waffles for brunch?" she asked with a cocked eyebrow.

His head popped into the doorframe. "Blair, I can safely say that I will never make you waffles."

"I hate when a man cooks," she said distractedly as she took in the layout and the décor of the place. "So? What's the surprise?"

As she inspected the thread count of the upholstered couch, he swooped in at her side and snaked his arms, bare and exposed from the wife beater he wore, around her waist and under her silk top. His nose buried in the nape of her neck as his hands explored the smooth coolness of her back.

"This top, I love this top. Where did you get it?" he asked in between kisses along her collarbone. His fingers found the string tied behind her neck and pulled at it.

"What? Bendel's. Why?" She asked breathily.

"And you smell. You smell so damn good. Better than you've ever smelled before." He dropped the silk scrap softly to the floor and hooked his thumbs into her belt loops of her white shorts and pulled her against him.

"It's um. Lemon Sugar from Fresh," she said. She was perplexed. He liked it.

"Delicious."

He leaned in to kiss her finally but she pulled back. "I want my present."

"There is no present," he smiled and caught her lips quickly.

"What?"

"It's the only way I could get you here. I know how you hate leaving Manhattan."

"Dan Humphrey, you sly minx. I'd almost be proud of you," she said saccharinely and leaned in close, trailing a finger from his Adam's Apple to the hem of shirt and dragged it down with her nail. "That is if I weren't so furious!" And she pushed him back.

"Hey, Hey, Waldorf, come on." She picked up her shirt and began redressing. "You don't have to go outside, you can stay here. We can order in, from your favorite restaurants even, from Butter, and you can spend the weekend here with me."

"Don't flatter yourself. I was going to the Hampton's to visit Serena this weekend."

"Isn't Chuck there right now?"

She stopped dead, the front door halfway open.

"Yeah, I thought so," he said with a drop of arrogance and know-it-all. "Well played, don't you think?" he added and he'd never felt so deliciously devious.

The next thing he remembered was her rush into his arms, pushing him back roughly, into the doorframe, back pedaling back into his room, his back hitting the sheets of his bed, her thighs around his hips gripping tightly. The way her nails scratched his side as she dug out his shirt from underneath his pants and tore it over his head.

It was much too hot for such exertions. But he didn't especially care.

How he came to have Blair Waldorf in his bed, he didn't know either. And he didn't especially care.

xoxo

Dan was going crazy. Three days after their elevator incident and he was more unsettled than ever. He was downing coffee and if he had a pen in his hand, no hard surface would be safe from its tapping. Kissing Blair Waldorf was without a doubt the strangest thing that he'd ever done…no, wait, the strangest thing he'd ever had happen to him. Obviously he'd been possessed by some otherworldly dues ex machina playing a cruel trick on him. And dammit if he couldn't stop thinking about it. Her alabaster, porcelain like skin. Her perfectly pouting lips and how her shining gloss had rubbed off on his.

He thought about it all the way to the bedroom door of her penthouse.

"Dan, what are you doing here?" She sounded startled. She'd never just called him plain old Dan before.

"I…I should have called. Yeah, that would have been better. Calling before, showing up to someone's house who, where I'm not welcome nor ever have been."

She stood, staring expectantly.

"I should go," he said and turned.

"Wait," she called after him.

He faced her again. "Uhh, yeah?"

"What happened," she began. "It never happened."

"God, yes. I'm so glad you feel the same way," he breathed a huge, audible sigh of relief and grinned nervously. "Suuuuch a relief. Whew."

"Excuse me?"

Now he was lost. "What?" It was all over his face.

"I'm no Georgina Sparks you need to keep hidden in your closet labeled embarrassing hookups with psychotic bimbos."

"You're not?"

"You kissed me!" she cried, becoming hysterical.

He was utterly lost.

"Wait a minute, you kissed me," he said.

"Ew, as if I'd ever."

"Don't flatter yourself into thinking I've been carrying around some sort of sick, revolting baggage of feelings for you just because I've been nice to you once or twice," he bit back.

"Good, well neither have I!"

They were at a standstill, the three inches of the doorframe separating them.

"Good."

They had gotten close.

"Good."

Too close.

And once again whatever sick deity or god or monster or demon had pulled them together in the elevator did so again as they rushed in a frenzy towards each other as if three inches was much too much space to have come between them. Again, their kiss was messy, rushed, tumultuous as if they had been thirsty for a long while and had just now found the source of water where they had previously thought a mirage.

When they were able to pull away, Blair looked up at him with her eyes large and wild and deep. "What the hell are we doing?"

"I have no idea," he responded and kissed her again, twirling them around and pressing her back up against the doorframe so as to get steadier access to her. His lips wandered from her lips to her jaw line to her ear and neck.

"You're revolting," she said, but it came out as more of a whimper as he raked his teeth softly along where her jaw.

"And you disgust me," he murmured back.

She found her hands wandering along his shoulder blades and put them to use, pushing them out pin straight and creating a space an arms length between them as her palms lay flat against his shoulders.

"Humphrey," she said, hesitation and warning in her voice. She was trying to gain composure.

They both inhaled and exhaled several times, at a loss for anything to say.

"I'm sorry I just really have the urge to kiss you again," he said finally.

"Oh, God this is awful!" She bit the nail of her thumb quietly as she gazed down at the floor.

"And I have no clue why. I may need to be psychologically evaluated after this because, clearly, something is very very wrong—"

"This is so wrong," she said to herself.

"I feel dirty."

She looked up at him and met his eyes.

"Well, what are we going to do?" she asked.

"We're about to do something very, very, _very, _stupid," he conceded.

xoxo

The first time he'd lifted her up, light as a feather, and her legs squeezed around his waist and her back arched, he could feel the shape of her. She gasped as the coolness of the stainless steel refrigerator she was up against. He could have held her there forever. He thought of everywhere they'd have sex in that position. In the elevator with the emergency lever pulled, in his apartment, in her shower, and once in the ladies room of the Metropolitan Opera.

Then there's be just flashes, images. Her face lit by candlelight on a muggy night, something he probably failed to take notice of at the time. How once she wound a curl of his hair around her index finger mindlessly.

And finally, came the end. The end moment, the ending scene, the final number.

xoxo

"_The moment when the guests had been daringly lifted above conviviality into the rarer atmosphere of sentiment,"_ Dan read from the pages of an old book. _"…was over before it could be irreverently breathed, before they had half realized it was there."_

She lay wrapped in his sheets and nothing else, hair in curls cascading down her shoulders. The afternoon sun was shining through; the windows wide open while the air conditioning buzzed. She was listening intently, for she had never read Fitzgerald's _Tender is the Night. _

She'd never been read to by a lover, nor had he. Two intellectuals discovering the sensuous rolling of the tongue over words on a page was something new and private and calming. They put aside the banter, the snark, the insults that they so loved and held dear and found common ground in literature.

Dan read the line before reading it aloud and with his thumb pressed between the covers against the open page he let it drop to his side. He crawled forward from his chair to the bed where she listened and repeated it as he neared her.

_"You're the only girl I've seen for a very long time that actually did look like something blooming,"_ he said and kissed her, soft and slow and unlike how they usually kissed. It was a lazy afternoon, hot, and the city and their lives seemed to be moving as slow as the Deep South.

The kiss was languorous and long until they tapered off and he read once again, her head on his chest and arm strewn lazily around his middle.

_"We were just like lovers--and then all at once we were lovers--and ten minutes after it happened I could have shot myself--except I guess I'm such a Goddamned degenerate I didn't have the nerve to do it."_

"Sounds familiar," Blair said.

"We're still on minute nine," he told her.

She smiled devilishly into his mouth when he kissed her again. Her hand snuck around him until she found the book and snatched it away.

She sat up. "My turn."

She read for pages and pages, entranced with the story and the words. Dan had never heard her sound so serene, her voice a perfect soft melody that could have put him to sleep out of sheer pleasure at hearing it. He may have drifted off to some peaceful hazy place, but returned when she paused. She glanced up to look at him, some fear and hesitation in her eyes. He looked back at her, silent, until she dipped down to read once more.

_"We can't go on like this--or can we?....What do you think?... Some of the time I think its my fault--I've ruined you,"_ she read softly.

He said nothing.

Eventually she continued, and when she got to, "_Tangled with love in the moonlight she welcomed the anarchy of her lover,"_ it was all over.

The book fell casually to the floor and they never reached the end.

He put away his typewriter then. He didn't care much for the end anyway. He was in no mood today to try and figure out why a flame flickers out or why the sun shines jut as bright but turns cold. He didn't much care to chronicle how someone moves on from minute nine to minute ten.

He recalled reading the first sentence of Fitzgerald aloud to her; he'd forgotten to begin that scene there, so he fished the same old copy from his messy bookshelf and opened it.

He thought that when you revisit beginnings they often carry a heavier load than before, as if the words are weighed down by the finality of the story about to be told.

"_On the pleasant shore of the French Riviera, about halfway between Marseilles and the Italian border, stands a large, rose-colored hotel."_

He closed the book.


	3. Chapter 3

**Well, I did it! I wrote a companion to something I said was finished but apparently wasn't. It probably defeats the purpose of my two-shot, but wanted to add on and not make it an entirely new story. It's not nearly as good, and have no idea where it's going, but it's been sitting on my computer and I'm having a Dair flare up. I hope you guys like it! Review, review, review! - Air  
**

**Synopsis: Dan has written his play chronicling his and Blair's short-lived relationship. What happens when Blair shows up to opening night? **

* * *

The clock struck eight and the curtain was late. He tapped his shoe annoyingly on the ground, eliciting several glances in his direction. Naturally from people who didn't know he was the playwright; a playwright who was premiering his first full three-act play on this very night. He'd written it in six months, sold it in one, and they'd developed it for another nine. All of this time for only four weeks of material.

He hoped she wouldn't come.

It was off-Broadway anyway. There was no reason, no actual reason she would, unless she were keeping tabs on him. Which was a stupid, stupid thought. Eight years and only the barest of interactions at family gatherings here and there. Although there was never to say who would attend which holiday. With a family comprising of the Humphreys, van der Woodsens and Basses, they could reach to all corners of the earth at any given time. However, during the occasional holiday when they crossed paths, the conversations were kept short and sweet – rather, snide was probably more accurate - and wholly on the surface.

It was risky, putting pen to paper and paper to stage, but as a writer he'd learned long ago that his strength lay in writing what he knew. And he knew every inch of those four weeks in the summer of 2010.

He disguised it enough with a thin veil so that his friends and family wouldn't pick it up so clearly. If inspired at all by true events, there were plenty of women to choose from.

To hell with the first reviews. If she showed up, there would be no disguising it.

* * *

_"You've been distracted lately."_

_It was a lazy Sunday morning and he'd ordered brunch in to be catered at the loft. What had been a morning of mimosas, fresh linen sheets being crumpled, and classical music for the past two weeks hadn't taken the same turn. Blair was hung up on her phone, texting, checking, quiet and somber even._

_"Hmm, what I shame. I'd hate to miss hanging on every word you say, Humphrey," she replied. It wouldn't have stuck with him if it hadn't been so blasé in delivery._

_He slammed back the rest of his mimosa before throwing the glassware against the brick wall of his room. Its high-pitched shatter jolted Blair to her feet. Never had she expected to be rattled by Dan Humphrey._

_"What the hell are you doing?" she demanded._

_"Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't aware I now had your attention," he said sarcastically as she began to pick up her things from around the room. "Oh, no. There it went. Two seconds to spare before you begin to gather your things and run for the door. All it took was breaking a dish or two."_

_"One that's probably worth more than your monthly mortgage on this garage."_

_Dan sighed. She was almost out the door._

_"Blair, wait," he pleaded. But she didn't. He followed her out the door and into the hallway. "Wait a second, Blair!"_

_She whirled, fuming. "What?"_

_"Look. I-I know you've been texting him."_

_Her entire body tensed. '"Don't do this, Humphrey," she warned in a low voice._

_"Do what?" He wondered where the slight whine in her voice had gone. He was intrigued by this new sound, this new tonal quality in her as much as he was terrified of it. He inched closer, closing the gap of the hallway between them._

_"Don't go down this road. Don't fight for me. Don't even think about it for a second."_

_A second passed in his thoughts._

_"I'll make it easy for you, Dan." She hardly ever called him that. It sounded foreign and invasive. "I don't want you to fight for me. I want you to turn around, go into your room and forget this ever happened."_

_"I can't-I can't do that. And I know. Look, I know your history with Chuck. I know it's not easy, and it's complicated and you're right he's probably the guy for you. I can't stand here in front of you and say he's not and that I am. I won't fight for you, Blair. But I won't just forget."_

_Blair gulped and waited for him to continue._

_"You go. You can go. This was…this was a mistake. Futile from the start and…entirely senseless. Crazy even how we…how we got to this place." He tapered off as he finished his thought and glanced up at her. She was still and stiff._

_"This past month has been the most shameful month of my entire life," she said softly, firmly, with a small sense of pride mistaken for dignity and quietly turned and walked away._

_

* * *

_

"I don't particularly like how your actors played us. Well…me, especially. The one playing you was gratingly self righteous, had no fashion sense. So I guess he hit the mark."

Dan stood cold as he heard the unmistakable voice taunting him; the goading in her tone and waft of her Chanel perfume. It was muskier, more adult. He was paralyzed. His back was to her and he had no idea how he should react. With snark, venom, sarcasm, kindness, ennui, exasperation?

"Hello, Mrs. Bass," he said all too saccharinely as he turned to her with a half mischievous smile. Jackpot.

"It's been a while," she said as she surveyed her surroundings, feigning disinterest.

"It certainly has been. Could have been longer— why did you come, Blair?"

"I've always been a fan of the theater, Humphrey, you know that," she said with a smile and swept her eyelashes up at him. "And after all, you're my brother-in-law." He winced. "Why wouldn't I want to come to the opening of my family's accomplished playwright in residence?"

"Alright, cut it out. First of all…Chuck is…I don't even know what he is. My step-mother's adopted son, that barely makes us brothers. It makes us occasionally more likely to bump into each other than the other six billion people on the planet—"

"Breathe, Humpty Dumpty," Blair interjected.

"And second of all…you know what? I think you should leave. Yes, leave." He moved towards her and took her arm callously and began to hustle her towards the exit.

"Hey!" she cried. "No one man handles me!" She wriggled and writhed until she broke free and fumed as he once again grinned like he always did when he gained the upper hand back from a fight.

"I seem to have done my fair share once upon a time."

She slapped him. That took the amusement right out of him. "You had no right to write about us and parade it on stage for all of Manhattan to see and review and talk about. Do you have any idea what it would mean if anyone figured it out? For my marriage, for me? For you?"

"For me?" Dan was puzzled, but he dropped the question when he reeled himself in from his whiplash to find Blair on the verge of tears. "Look, Blair. No one is going to know. It's been seven years and no one close to us has even remotely suspected anything has ever happened between us. If I announced it at the next van der Humphrey Bass Christmas no one would even turn their heads because the fucking idea of you and I ever having fucked would be so outrageously preposterous to them that it wouldn't even register as a blip on their socialite addled radar screens that they have for brains!"

And with that, Dan stormed out, angrier than he'd been in years, and left Blair Bass in a sea of red velvet curtains.

* * *

_All of the windows in the Brooklyn bungalow were open, and the muggy night air hung heavy with the sound of the one lonely cricket in all of New York and the sounds of city that had become white noise._

_They rarely had the lights on anymore, and preferred to let candle light glow and bounce soft and golden off of the brick walls and white sheets. Their breathing was heavy like the air, staggered and filled with heat._

_Blair caught a whimper in the back of her throat and strangled it as Dan languorously rolled his hips and thrust in and out of her. He was moving slow and deep, and deliberately, because he knew how much she liked the feverish and carnal aspects of fucking. He could bend her over a table any day, wrinkle her Nicole Miller dress and rip her La Perlas in half and she would love it and yet still be in control. But not tonight._

_"Tell me you want me," he demanded in a husky voice, his lips right above hers. Her breathing gave way to a groan she couldn't subdue this time. "Say it," he said again._

_"I want you," she whispered._

_"Louder." And he buried himself to the hilt inside of her and waited until he knew she wanted the rhythm back as she squirmed against him._

_"I do. I want you," she choked out in a high-pitched voice. Dan began moving against her again, and soon she was meeting his thrust with an upwards jolt of her own hips. He let her go on like that for a while, until the speed picked up and he was losing again. His hands found the sharp bones of her hips and grabbed them, pinning her to the bed._

_"Look at me, Blair," he commanded and he was hovering over her, controlling every movement, every agonizingly slow movement, and she was helpless underneath him. Her knees were up around his waist and her arms now free, found themselves roaming his body, dewy from their exertions, which were reaching near forty five minutes now. "Say my name," he said and she was at the point of saying anything if it meant he'd quell the deep, swelling pressure building ever so slowly inside of her._

_"Dan," she mewed. "Please."_

_She hardly ever called him Dan. He kissed her and went on that way for another fifteen minutes._


	4. Chapter 4

**Thanks for the lovely reviews flooding my inbox over the past couple of days! They've totally inspired me to go on not writing my actual original work and write more of this story. And no! it's not finished, I promise. I have no clue where it's going after the next chapter, but I'm aiming for a couple more, nothing epic or massive that I know I won't be able to finish though. (Boo, real life, amiright?) Anyway, response has been exhilarating! Please review more! All of them have been wonderful but also so thoughtful and smart. I have damn good readers. - Air**

* * *

"_To mistake it for a love story is to mistake it entirely, it's more poignant, and what makes it more lasting than any other off Broadway drama at the moment is that it's about a love that never had the chance to be a story…" _Lily read aloud from the New Yorker review and fanned herself with the magazine upon finishing her breath. "Oh my, Daniel. I simply cannot believe these reviews."

"If I didn't know my son better I'd have half a mind to think he bought them," Rufus chimed in.

"Then you've miscalculated, Dad, because you'd know I would have if I had the money in my bank account," Dan responded with a smile.

The family had gathered those in town or willing to fly in for an impromptu party once the reviews had propelled the play to the talk of the town. Dan tried to quell Lily's need to throw a society party, for his natural sense of pride and embarrassment kicked in.

"Oh, Humphrey, still trying to act as if you don't have a trust account," Blair sighed and rolled her eyes at him. He was still trying to figure out why the Basses showed up when his own sister failed to. He'd guessed since Jenny and Serena were out of town, Lily had put considerable pressure on Chuck to support his quasi stepbrother along with Eric and his parents. Dan wished she'd known how exceedingly unhelpful Lily's good deed was.

"I'm sorry, why are you here again?" Dan shot daggers at Blair, who held his gaze with equally fiery eyes until she swept her eyelashes down and reached for her champagne.

"We're here to support the family, Daniel," Chuck rasped.

"What are we, the Corleones?" Dan asked, exasperated.

"You two really should go and see it," Eric added, trying to quell the bickering.

"We really shouldn't," Blair mumbled.

"Yes, you really shouldn't," Dan spit back.

"What Blair means to say is, we really couldn't at this time. Bass Industries is expanding to Brazil and we're planning to spend a lot of time in between Manhattan and Sao Paolo," Chuck mediated, ever the businessman. "Perhaps if your piece is lucky enough to have longevity, we'll catch it in time."

"Well, a blessing as I'll ever get from Chuck Bass," Dan responded. "Who wants another drink before the guests get here? I know I sure do."

* * *

_"Another drink?" Blair asked as she scooped up the third bottle of wine and carried it, slightly teetering, back to the living room floor of her penthouse._

_"I still can't believe you don't like the French New Wave. Blair Waldorf, worshipper of all things French and stupid, instead of French and revolutionary," Dan rambled on as she leaned over the coffee table and poured two fresh glasses of Bordeaux._

_"Old Hollywood was an era of glamour and grace. Le Noveau Vague becomes retro chic, with the skinny ties and the ennui. It's much too pretentious and understated to the point of boredom." He couldn't believe it. She was wasted and could speak like that. Sure, her V's were a little softer. He imagined her lips becoming numb and buzzing with the vibrations of her diction, and how her brain was thinking faster than her molasses tongue would allow. And yet she would not heel. She continued. "Which is why you like it so much I would guess."_

_The floor was padded with plush pillows and throws and felt rather like the den of a rich lioness. Dan supposed it was only fitting if Blair were to condescend to sit on the floor. She couldn't have planned it as forethought to a romantic evening. It was too quick for that. After their initial kiss in the elevator, and their subsequent makeout session in her room, they'd both left their predicament un-discussed and wide open to interpretation._

_So when Blair had called him and snipped into the receiver, "I think it's time we face this properly and in good taste. My place, ten tonight, and normally I'd tell you to bring a bottle, but I don't trust your taste in spirits, so be prepared to consume very large, very large quantities of wine. Or else I'll never get through this."_

_The line went dead before Dan had had the time to begin processing the intentions behind it. So it was extremely unlikely that she's had Dorota setup for a date. This wasn't a date. No. No? Then what was it? Fuck. Dan Humphrey was drunk. He was drunk and trying to figure out what the hell he was doing trailing his eyes up the back of Blair Waldorf's skirt. Thinking about her tongue as sweet molasses. Thinking about her_

_He was suddenly struck with the thought that maybe this was the exact reason she'd decided they needed to be drunk. They couldn't stand each other, but couldn't resist each other. Sooner or later they were bound to rip each other's clothes off, so why not grab the elephant in the room by its tusks, get it drunk, and then address it?_

_He grabbed her elbow and swiftly maneuvered her down against the pillows propped upped against the chaise. He was half leaning, half hovering over her, his eyes glassy from the fog of alcohol until he could blink and refocus on her in macro. She glared at him._

_"I know what you're doing. We both know we can't stand each other, but for some reason we can't resist each other. Sooner or later they were bound to rip each other's clothes off, so why not grab the elephant in the room by its tusks, get it drunk, and then address it? See? I know what you've done. You're shifty."_

_Blair's expression remained grave. "You're—you're disgusting and beneath me," she beautifully and intoxicatingly articulated, giving away the state of her thoughts and the cloud of her wit by the wine._

_"And you're trying to get in my pants," Dan said and smiled. He inched closer to her, his hands now on the floor on either side of her and his face growing closer to hers by the centimeter._

_Blair grew uncomfortable. She needed to come out of this with the upper hand and she was sorely losing. She was too drunk to be cunning. Too much in a corner to be snide. He was expecting both and she knew it._

_"Guilty," she grinned and wrinkled her nose. "So kiss me already."_

_"I don't think so," he sighed and rolled off of his hands and leaned back against the chaise next to her. "You planned it, I grant you the honors."_

_Her brow furrowed in anger before she grew a sly smile. "Oh, I see." She slinked across him and straddled him, arms slinging around his neck. Dan gulped audibly. "You know, Humphrey, as well as I do, that what we're both thinking is all we need a night of primal, animalistic, raw…" she trailed off, attempting to be seductive while truthfully losing her words in her brain. Dan's increasingly heavy breathing and hooded eyelids didn't help any. He really had exquisite bone structure._

_"Anyway!" She snapped out of her slight drunken trance. "And honestly I won't blame you if you become doe-eyed for me after, but you must know I mean to squash whatever lustful creature of inappropriate and classless feelings this is and go back to despising you without the urge to kiss you. So…" her voice popped, "I can understand why you'd want to play this game."_

_She swung her hair flippantly. "Wait wait wait a minute," Dan responded. "You don't think I want the exact same thing? That I don't question if I've recently suffered a brain injury and am attracted to the one girl in the world who symbolizes everything I hate? This is like a sick Greek tragedy."_

_"Like Zeus…or better yet Hades has us on puppet strings—wait what?"_

_"What?"_

_"It's that incredulous to you that you'd ever be attracted to me? I'm not exactly hideous."_

_"Well neither am I!" Dan retorted._

_"Ugh, I am so over this!" Blair screeched in frustration._

_"So am I!" Dan growled._

_They were both fuming, and the heat from their argument had heightened their senses, the alcohol was sending prickling sensations to their fingers and toes, and Blair was still straddling Dan._

_With a rush of forward momentum, her lips clashed with his furiously. Maybe it was the wine, but she really did taste like molasses._

_

* * *

_

A.N. - p.s. to write the sex scene or not to write the sex scene? _  
_


	5. Chapter 5

**A.N. - Hey everyone! Here's the next chapter. I've been getting amazing reviews. Honestly I can't thank you enough! Every time I read a new review it gives me that much more incentive to take the time to write some more, or else I'm sure I would fall off and leave it unfinished. Please keep reviewing! I also so appreciate the constructive criticism reviews as well. I love reading those and love that some of you are looking for good writing and good story and structure. I'm well aware this chapter kind of sucks. I wanted to write something for you ASAP and had some time tonight. I kind of forced it and am well aware that my style has been changing and/or lacking consistency from chapter to chapter and I apologize. Hopefully the next installment will be better. Keep reviewing, I love you all as much as I love Dan/Blair! -Air**

* * *

Dan's hands fumbled with the zipper on the back of her dress as he submerged a hand in her hair to assure himself she would stay where she was firmly planted. Kissing him. He snaked it down her back and flicked his arms forward in order to pool the garment at her waist. Blair, in turn, had been fighting his work on her clothes with her own. She'd gotten the tie undone expertly, whereas most girls just loosen it and pull it up and over. And yes, he had worn a skinny tie to her house. She'd commented on it earlier. She never missed a beat.

"Be careful," she murmured as he flipped them so that she was on her back and he was tugging her dress off her hips and down her legs.

"Shut up," he said and silenced her with this new trick he had learned. With his lips. Oh, and his hand trailing up her thigh.

They were sloppy and uncouth, but with inhibitions set aside, explosive like fireworks, and uninterrupted by their incessant need to insult one another between takes. Their bodies just moved, his staccato thrusts eliciting an escaped noise from her with every finished stroke.

For the first time, Dan Humphrey didn't feel the need to be gentle or sweet, or even sensual. He wondered why he wasn't afraid of breaking Blair Waldorf.

* * *

Dan had spent two hours discussing his play with society goers who just had to know where he got his inspiration. His eyes would nervously dart to Blair, whom he'd been casually tracking across the room the entire night. He'd blink, stumble over his words and finally settle on explaining to the various women of middle-aged desperation itching for a tale that it was pure fiction. That killed their interest quickly.

"There he is! The playwright of the hour, my stepson," Lily swept to him and smiled her perfect society smile as she latched on Dan's arm and led him, like prey to a pack of vultures to a swarm of guests, circling like vultures with their bubbly champagne spouting from their arms like an accessory. "Daniel, do tell them all about your play. Everyone is dying to get the perspective of the writer!"

Blair stood among them.

"Why stand around and speculate amongst ourselves when we have you right here?" cried a woman with a toss of her hair and a cackle.

Dan's throat became scratchy and dry. He could feel her eyes on him; her eyelashes batting furiously and the corners of her mouth tightly turned upright in a snooty smile.

"Tell me," interjected anther woman immediately, "did you write Brooke's character as if she really cared about him back? Despite her choice?"

He witnessed Blair stiffen, and as he struggled to drag his eyes off of her, he turned towards to the inquirer.

"Obviously it's open to interpretation," he said.

"Oh but come on! Have it out, just this once. We promise we won't tell and spoil it for everyone!"

Truthfully Dan couldn't recollect how he'd written it. He'd just taken it down as it had happened. He didn't care to dwell on the reasons why. It just was. As his chest swelled with anger and frustration a the sheer existence of Blair standing by him, circling her finger around the rim of her glass and appearing just as she should, he felt the biting words rise.

"No. No I didn't. I didn't write Brooke as having left David with lingering feelings. She made her choice, she told him how it was. So I guess what is really left up to interpretation is what her angle was, or what her meaning was behind those four weeks they spent together. Maybe it was temporary insanity on both sides, or maybe he helped fill a void for he time being before she would inevitably return to someone more suitable to her, with more history between them with whom she shared a more compatible disposition and value system. I don't know."

Dan's eyes met Blair's, his fiery and wild beneath his smooth exterior.

"But I know with certainty that there was no lingering want for him once out that door."

Blair's eyes were glassy and wide. She inhaled through her nose and held his gaze as he looked to no one else in the circle.

"David was convenient. So really it's a play about how deceiving convenience can be, isn't it?"

Suddenly his trance like diatribe was broken when Blair diverted her eyes and with a quick bow of her head, darted away from them and headed out of the room. Her swift and unexplained exit sent waves of murmurs among those who witnessed it, and Lily shot Dan a quizzical eye.

"Listen, I—" Dan stammered. "I'm sorry but I'll be right back. I'm sorry. Excuse me," he darted awkwardly between his guests and followed.

* * *

"Blair!" Dan caught up with her in the hallway to Serena's old room.

She turned around, crossed her arms, but while Dan had expected to meet with fury, he was greeted with complete dejection.

"You _really _need to stop this Humphrey. It's exhausting."

"What is? My tendency to chase after you in hallways or to talk about us behind the veil of my play?"

"Convenient?" Blair barked out, with incredulity in her voice.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Look I realize what amount of brooding and solemnity an artist is required to view the world, and believe me I understand the veil of bitterness that drops over anyone's head and clouds any good memories with pessimism, but you can't honestly..." she trailed off.

He stood silent, staring at her with wonder. At her words, at the shaking in her voice he detected and her inability to finish a sentence for the first time he's ever been aware of.

Blair sank against the wall and looked up towards the ceiling, wiping away something beneath her eye and sniffling. She didn't continue.

Dan was at a loss. "What are you…" he trailed off as well. He wasn't sure exactly what was happening, except that she had come to his play, yelled at him, made a scene storming away from him in a crowd of high society folks, and now all signs seemed to point to her crying. But that just couldn't be right. He scratched the back of his neck.

"Look I—" he began again.

"I'm meant to be with Chuck," she interjected.

"I'm not trying to—"

"Just like you're meant to be with Serena."

"Well, I think Carter Baizen might have something to say about that," Dan said and elicited a wry smile from Blair.

"No I mean that you'll always be in love with her. I'll always be in love with Chuck and I was always in love with Chuck. It just makes sense. We didn't make sense."

"No, we certainly didn't," Dan said quietly. "Blair, what do you want me to say? I'm at a loss here."

Blair pushed herself away from the wall and smoothed out her hair.

"I'm saying…Don't ever for one second think that you were a convenient distraction."

She lifted her chin and moved to brush past him, but he side stepped her and blocked her way. She was inches from him and refused to step back. He was considerably taller and looked down at her, locking her eyes with his so close that they were barely in focus.

"What should I think then?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

"You should have thought to fight for me."

* * *

_Blair was sprawled across Dan's bare chest, her fingers tracing imaginary tails along it. Her eyes dozed closed and opened languidly as the time passed without them._

_"We should get out of bed one of these days," Dan murmured sleepily._

_"We have nowhere to be. We're compete degenerates," Blair grumbled and wrinkled her nose._

_"I don't know how I've managed to keep you wearing a bed sheet for the better part of three days, but I feel a strong sense of accomplishment. And pride."_

_Blair propped her chin up on his chest and looked up at him, smiling. The sunlight diffused into the room from her gauzy window curtains and softened and warmed her features._

_"You're beautiful," he said sincerely._

_"Ew, gross Humphrey," she said and rolled off of him._

_"Yepp, well that'll get you out of bed. Keep wearing the bed sheet though! I like how it drapes," he called after her as she planted her feet on the floor to taper off to the bathroom. A fluffy pillow came hurling his way and hit him in the face._

_Dan laughed. "Don't you go falling in love with me, Blair!" he called sarcastically after her._


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey lovely readers! Sorry this took a while...I'm swamped with work, and writing work at that so I'm up to my ears in five different stories essentially. I wanted to make this chapter a little better than the last in terms of quality of writing so I hope it paid off! There's probably only a few chapters left in this story, but I'll make them count. And remember, your reviews remind me to write! I love every single one of them and wish I could respond to them all! Just know that every single one lights up my day when I get to read them secretly on my blackberry. Love love love! -Air **

* * *

Dan needed to clear his head. He'd written his play in order to purge whatever was lingering from his past and now it had all come back into his life. Everything he had dealt with when he was twenty was coming back to him. Except Dan Humphrey was an adult now. He had a life now. He was an author, a playwright, he had his life together. He didn't need Blair Wald—Blair Bass ruining everything he'd made for himself. Sure, he'd almost married Serena a few years back, but she'd skipped town the day before the wedding and had nearly expatriated herself since. He barely had a relationship with Jenny or Vanessa anymore. Frankly, he didn't understand how he, Dan Humphrey, of all people, was still so entwined with the Upper East Side.

He'd attended Blair's wedding, but had been more focused on the fact that Serena had flown in from Australia with Carter Baizen on her arm than he had to the fact that Blair was marrying Chuck Bass. He'd always expected it. At that point he hadn't even seen her since he'd studied abroad in London, and that last meeting with Blair Waldorf had been one he didn't care to remember.

He wasn't sure how he felt about her now. He'd written a play about her. But he wasn't in love with her. He never had been. And yet the vision of her glassy eyes telling him that he could have won eight years ago kept replaying over and over in his mind.

Dan slammed his laptop down in frustration, grabbed his coat and slammed his loft door behind him.

He was halfway to Manhattan when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and squinted at the name on the screen. "Serena". He stalled until the last ring and finally answered.

"Hello?"

"Dan, hi," Serena's voice rang on the other end of the line. He couldn't remember that last time they had talked. Background noise filled the receiver and he struggled to hear her.

"Listen, I'm in New York and I was wondering if we could meet."

"Sure, sure. Now?" Dan waved to his cab driver to expect a change in directions.

"Yeah, Yeah. Um, I'm with Carter right now. But…I need to talk to you. Can I come by later?"

Shit.

"Yeah. I'll just be at the loft. I have nowhere to be. Why would I? Staying in as per usual," Dan responded with a slightly sardonic tone.

Serena didn't pick up on it. "Great, I'll see you later," she said and hung up.

* * *

Blair sat up in her plush king sized bed, wearing reading glasses and flipping through fashion magazines. She could hear faint sounds from the bathroom where her husband was getting ready to retire for the evening. She hated the way he gargled.

When he swaggered into the room in a silk bathrobe, she couldn't help but roll her eyes.

"Hi, Hugh," she quipped and glanced back to her magazine as he rolled into bed.

"I've been thinking," Chuck drawled. "I know I'm leaving tomorrow for Rio and you're not slated to come down to the villa for another month…"

He slowly pried the magazine out of her hands and tilted her chin towards him.

"Come with me tomorrow instead," he said.

"I'm not even packed."

"The day after then."

"Chuck, we've been apart for longer."

"I know, but," his hand wrapped around her waist and his palm rested on her abdomen. "I want to make a baby with you in Brazil. The air is better than Manhattan. More romantic. Steamier…"

Chuck leaned in to kiss her neck.

"I really don't see why we can't wait until we're 30," she sighed.

Chuck groaned and plopped back onto his side of the bed.

"I thought we talked about this, Blair."

"We never decided on anything."

Chuck clenched his jaw at his wife's apparent indifference. She was cold.

"Sure. It's not like we don't have plenty of time ahead of us," he said.

"Well," she began saccharinely. "'Till death do us part, right?" And smiled a tight smile before returning back to her leisure.

* * *

"Hi," Dan said as he opened the door to let Serena in.

"Hi," she smiled politely and gave him an awkward hug, giggling to relieve the tension as she always did.

Dan cleared a spot on the couch and offered her a drink.

"So, wow. It's a…it's been. A while," he said.

This was turning out to be a strange fucking week.

"Yeah, I know. Listen, Dan…" Serena began. "I'd love to properly catch up with you. I would, but I'm actually here because I need to talk to you about something. And I'm not exactly sure how to say it."

"Well, as long as it's not 'Dan, I've made a huge mistake. You're the love of my life please take me back' I'd say we're pretty much at a point where we can talk about things. So….spit it out."

"I saw you're play tonight," Serena blurted out nervously.

Dan reeled back, "Oh," was all he could muster.

"Dan…"

"Don't," he put up his hand. "Shit."

"I've known Blair my whole life. I know her better than anyone. And I know when I see her on stage."

Dan stood up, running his hands through his hair and turning away from Serena.

"When was it?" She asked quietly.

"Uhhh," Dan rubbed his five o'clock shadow and collected his thoughts. He should have known this would happen. He should have known better.

"Summer, 2010. For about a month."

"Do you love her?"

"Do I? What? No!"

"Fine then did you?"

"Serena, it was a temporary lapse of judgment. She's Blair Waldorf after all!"

"Yeah and it makes a lot of sense, Dan," Serena stood now. "Not to mention you cared about that month enough to write a critically acclaimed play about it."

"It doesn't matter now, Serena," Dan said.

But Serena caught something in his eyes. A flicker of something profound and mischievous. Something that he might have been fully unaware of. She reeled back, her voice dropping low in warning.

"Exactly. Because she's married, Dan. To Chuck. You'd do well to remember that," she warned and walked out. "See you around."

* * *

Dan spent the better part of a week brooding, trying to write, staring at his phone, and brooding some more. He cooked a lot until he suddenly saw a flash-forward of himself as his father and promptly threw out his waffles and left to find solace somewhere else. Anywhere else.

He found himself at a small, independent movie theater that was screening a special showing of "It Happened One Night". He figured he could use a classic screwball comedy to lift his spirits. He also was quite fond of popcorn for breakfast.

As he pattered down the dirty red carpet of the old theater, he jostled his popcorn in its bag to try and redistribute the buttery topping to his liking. Dan didn't need to check where he was going, the theater was practically empty at this time of day, and besides, he always sat in the fifteenth row just like—

"You've got to be kidding me."

Dan didn't look up right away, just considered suffocating himself in his popcorn bag.

"What are you doing here, Blair? All you did was complain whenever I brought you here," Dan said and sat down, throwing up his feet and hoisting them atop the seat in front of him.

"Well, I did happen to bring my own purse size Lysol wipes," she said with pursed lips and pulled one out. Dan watched her incredulously as she began to daintily rub the arms of the seat next to him. "Besides, what the management lacks in hygiene and genera upkeep they somewhat makeup for with their restored prints." She sat down.

"Really? We're really doing this right now?" Dan asked.

"What?"

"You're sitting next to me."

"God, you're so high school. You know as well as I do that these are the best seats in the theater. And if you think I'm giving that up for you, then you clearly don't know that while it makes my skin crawl to be this close to you, it would make me break out in hives and want to asphyxiate myself is I were to possibly concede anything to you at all," she retorted.

"Oh, okay. I get it. We're back to bantering now, always the master of denial" he said sarcastically.

"Shush and watch the movie," Blair said and slapped his arm. Dan rolled his yes.

Jut like old times. He could smell her Chanel Number 5 and he could tell how transfixed she became. He could throw sidelong glances to her whenever he wanted and she would barely notice. He slouched. She sat up straight.

_-Say now, wait a minute. Let's get this straightened out right now. If you're nursing any silly notion that I'm interested in you, forget it. You're just a headline to me.—_

She was close enough that he could feel her muscles tense and hear her sharp intake of breath. She wasn't laughing. Wasn't even chuckling to herself under her breath. She wasn't even smiling. All he could think about was the way her jaw clenched, the way her shoulder brushed passed his arm, the way her voice had been shaking, the last time he'd seen her. And now it was there again. A jaw clenching eight years of something unsaid, unfulfilled, unable for some reason to let go after so long. Or perhaps clenching down something that had just recently arisen again.

_-What's the matter, child? Aren't you happy? I thought so. I knew there was something on your mind. There, there, there now. What's the matter? You haven't fallen in love with someone else, have you? Have you?—_

"Blair," he whispered.

She didn't acknowledge him.

"Blair," he whispered more insistently and pulled himself up to her level.

"Shhh. Please," she whispered back.

_-He despises everything about me. He says that I'm spoiled and selfish and pampered and thoroughly insincere.— _

Dan tentatively put his hand over hers. She looked down at her hand, blanketed softly by his and opened her fingers, arching them upwards to encourage his to intertwine.

Dan and Blair going to the movies. Dan and Blair holding hands.

_-Now, don't tell me you've fallen in love with a bus driver.—_

Yes, he realized now. Blair had loved him—and somehow loves him again.

It's your move now, Humphrey, he thought, better find yourself a trumpet and blow down the walls of Jericho.


	7. Chapter 7

**You guys were lacking on the reviews last chapter! But no worries, I know there was only one Dair scene and it was kind of small. But keep reviewing! Tell me what you're thinking, what your predictions are, what you like, what you don't like. I love every single review I get, no lie. Hope you guys like this one! -Air **

* * *

Being spontaneous was not the answer. Oh, how Dan would have relished in turning to her, noses centimeters apart in an old classic theater and gently sweeping his lips over hers. She would have quivered, and gripped his hand harder in affirmation that this is what she wanted but what she was too afraid to do.

No, there were obstacles to consider. For instance, how did he feel about committing adultery? Not too bad, actually. He didn't hold Chuck Bass in very high esteem. But then, if he were to enter into an affair with Blair Bass, what would be the objective? And was there a possibility he would be killed? He didn't know, and yes. And finally, was he in love with Blair Waldorf Bass? Once thorn in his side, once sworn enemy, once friend, once lover, now what? He barely knew her now.

He remembered her at her wedding, glowing and poised. At Christmases and Thanksgivings, with the same fire and the same deviancy, but harnessed and more properly placed so that she always remained in high esteem with anyone she might be engaging in conversation. All the while throwing sidelong glances wherever she pleased. He remembered the sidelong glace he received when Nate had told him Serena wasn't showing up.

But over the years their web of strange yet comforting incest had disintegrated. Nate was still close with everyone. He was the link. Even Blair and Serena had fallen off for a year or so, and then would reconnect again for a while. Dan couldn't help but think about what had once connected them all. Couldn't help but miss it. But before he could develop another play, he needed to finish another. The one he started and put on stage and had been the talk of the town without any kind of resolution. Who likes something like that anyway?

Fuck it.

Dan Humphrey always lived or died by the unplanned impulses of running his mouth.

His knock was impatient and insistent. His oxfords tapped the polished wood gratingly as he convinced the housekeeper to let him in, that it was urgent he see Mrs. Bass right away. He was her by-adoption-step-brother-in-law after all!

"Humphrey what are you doing here?" she asked. She wrapped a silk robe around her negligee and waited on the third step from the top of the penthouse. She was not amused, having been woken up from a troublesome sleep by the commotion.

"You love me," Dan said. Resolve and declaration in his voice; it was almost an accusation.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"You. Love. Me."

"You're deranged. Are you drunk?"

"No, but I'm willing to be if that's what it'll take to have this conversation." Dan swung his torso around, eyeing the bar on his level. "Should we break open some of Mr. Bass' fine Scotch whisky for the occasion?"

His arrogant demeanor was sending needles up Blair's spine, and when the first ice cube connected with a clink into the glass he was preparing, her feet couldn't help but patter down the stairs in a huff. Dan smirked to himself, triumphant in the first phase of whatever his plan might be.

"Get out. Now. I don't know who you think you are sauntering in like this, Humphrey, but so help me—"

"Tell me Blair, why is it we always seem to need some sort of beverage with a proof in order to accomplish anything? I'm having fond memories of a certain rug right now. Weird," he said much too coolly as he slid a glass her way.

"Maybe because the sound of your voice is like incessant nails scratching against the inside of my brain or that the sight of you makes me want to blur my vision so that you become a watery Monet of gross curls and indistinguishable colors."

Blair downed her whisky and slid it back across the bar to Dan. He hesitated in pouring another, unwilling to pull his eyes away from the storm brewing in hers. He was onto something. Finally he took up the bottle and poured.

"What was that at the movie tonight, then?" he asked, his voice lower, his tone softening.

"I was light headed," she spouted.

"Try again."

"I needed to steady myself."

"Nope," he said and took a sip of his drink.

"Why are you being so insufferable?" She said with a burst and a frustrating run of her hands through her hair.

"Invalid question. Why are you _always_ so insufferable?"

"Fine," Blair conceded, her voice low and ominous. "It was just a bit of nostalgia. But I don't love you."

"Did you?"

"Did you?" she asked.

"I asked first," he said.

"I don't like the third degree," she said and crossed her arms over her chest.

"I'll pour you another drink and you can think on it. I've got all night, and I'm not leaving here without an answer."

Blair's eyes widened slightly, and her lips parted in surprise. She buried it with rage soon after, but Dan wondered if he was going too far with this. He wasn't about to admit to feelings he wasn't even sure he had just to be thrown out by Blair's excellent amour of denial. He had to break it down first or his efforts would be futile. If he admitted it first he would lose, and she would turn him away, satisfied at her exacted revenge. At least he could see a scenario unfolding in that manner, and he had to draw this out of her. To be sure. To be certain.

"How could I have loved you, Dan? I left you, remember?"

"Very clearly."

"And you wrote a play about it nearly a decade later. So my question is, why are you acting so high and mighty when it's practically as plain as day that you were head over heels in love with me? Convenience? Really? Your bitterness is unbecoming on you, Humphrey. I thought you would have had a thicker skin."

Dan leaned over the mahogany of the bar. Blair had swiveled on her stool and sat squarely in front of him. Face off.

"That's funny, Blair," he began, low and pointed. "I could ask you the same thing. Since you came backstage. You made a scene by storming out of a high society party. You clutched my hand in the movie theater and scurried away like you were terrified when the credits rolled. You told me I should have fought for you eight years ago."

His last statement hung in the air between them. Blair held her chin high, though she knew he had delivered the kill shot.

"Which means that I could have won," he said. "I could have gone toe to toe with Chuck Bass and I could have won you. We both know what that means, Blair."

"Yes," she began shakily. "I suppose we do." Her eyes were wide now, and no longer controlled and tense the way a predator stands off with his prey. Her eyes were as round and as fearful as a skittish deer now. They collected salty liquid that splashed over them before pooling and falling.

"And the fact that you didn't? We both know what that means as well," she managed to bite out before crumbling before him and rushing to get down from her seat and run far away as fast as possible.

But Dan had noticed the signs and had anticipated her flight. He dashed around the bar and caught her in his arms just as her feet stroked the ground. Before she knew it Dan was tasting the salty tears on her lips and wiping away their tributaries with his thumbs on her cheeks.

He lingered there, just suspending time to his own will, without deepening the kiss. When he pulled back he traced his thumb over her lips. He couldn't remember their last kiss and he wanted to relish in this one. He never thought he'd get another.

Blair's eyes were searching his, hanging on his assurance, waiting to follow his lead.

"I love you, too," he whispered, still cupping her face. "I'm not Chuck. I may have played his game from the rooftop all of those years ago, but I wasn't about to have won and then left."

"It's what I would have done," she said, a little bit of shame, a little bit of pity coating her breath.

"I know," he said. "Which is what I just don't understand about you, Blair Waldorf. It isn't half as fun."

She let out a pocket of breath in a slight laugh and Dan couldn't help but wonder at her genuine smile. Without mischief, without condescension, pure.


	8. Chapter 8

_My dear readers - I can't tell you how sorry I am to have left this story unfinished and taken so long with it. I've worked on this last chapter bit by bit over the past few months and I hope you'll like the conclusion. I've loved writing this, expanding it, and creating a world for Dan and Blair in the future. Let's hope we get some of that on the show! As always, reading and reviewing warms my heart and makes my day, so please do so, especially now that this is the last chapter! xoxo - Air_

* * *

By thirty-five Dan Humphrey had become who he needed to become. He figured it was as good an age as any to finally complete the cocoon and emerge the fully-grown adult everyone was bound to become in life. He knew who he was. He was Dan Humphrey, critically acclaimed novelist and playwright. His first off Broadway play had put him on the map, and his follow up had debuted on Broadway and earned a Tony nomination. His subsequent novella, debut novel and so on in so few years—eight to be exact, had given him a recognizable name…and style.

So now, on one normal, boring, regular morning in his thirty-fifth year, he poured himself his usual third cup of coffee and sifted through the mail in his breakfast room, which overlooked a particularly steep and colorful hill in San Francisco. NPR murmured from his laptop and everything was going as per his usual morning routine before the usual morning walk to the farmer's market and the usual day of writing began. That is, until Dan came across a hefty vanilla envelope with the return address: Tracy Lord Magazine. His current issue had come in the mail last week. He half smiled, but it cracked and fell quickly enough.

"Hello, Blair," he muttered under his breath and tore off the top. Dan pulled out a bound in-progress copy of the next issue, a post it note attached on top.

_Humphrey – It seems you're well admired by the literary team at TL. Go figure. An ambitious Brooklynite has written this editorial on you and I wanted to run it by you for approval. Also, I told him I could get an article from you personally. Think it over, Fitz. – xo B. _

Fitz. That was weird. He peeled the note off and rubbed his thumb over the adhesive top on the table next to his copy. He stared at it for a while. XO. Of course, B. After all these years. He thought of her sitting in her glass windowed corner office, penning his note in a moment…a small moment of quiet and calm in her hectic day. He knew she would have written it alone, dropped it into the envelope and handed it off to an assistant, its contents hardly revealing, but filled with so many years of mutual understanding and words and thoughts shared. The fact that she called him Fitz , a nickname never uttered in their time together, confused and troubled him. He wanted to pick up his phone and call her right away, but resisted and instead decided to first leaf through the pages of the young writer's piece.

He read through it eagerly, and soon understood why Blair had allowed it to go through to publishing. It was rife with style, literary comparisons, class and status analytics and sharp realizations. Of course she would send him an article that would make the hairs stand up on the back of his neck and his toes tingle and the weird vein in his wrist throb. Of course Blair had read this and had had the same reaction before smiling slyly and thinking how wonderfully ironic it would be to publish it in her magazine. Of course this young writer knew nothing about the connection that Blair Waldorf had to the famous young writer Dan Humphrey, yet he would reveal everything within the pages of her magazine. They both knew it, they both understood it. And it would continue to remain their secret, hidden in the highbrow intellectualism of literary allegory.

Dan Humphrey, the young writer stated, was the modern day F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was an outsider looking in at the upper class. So closely tied to them, so integrated that one would think he was one of them, yet he maintained his separateness. His writing always dwelled on the coyness and mysteries of women. The blond, who was charming and bubbly and carefree, never to be tied down and ever unattainable. The brunette, whose intellect, style and class lit a fire of shrewd cunningness from within. And the money. The money and the decadence and the lives they lived and the loves they loved but for Dan—as for Fitzgerald—it seemed to be that the love always crumbled under the pressures of time. The rich loved furiously and passionately, but only very temporarily. Everything was transient.

Jesus, Dan thought to himself. How could he have never made the connection before? His ears were ringing, his heart pounding—damn coffee! His chair scratched unpleasantly on the hardwood floors as he pushed it back and rushed to his library. He pulled book after book roughly from shelves, tore through the pages with very little reverence or care and spent the afternoon with Fitz. He found quote after quote that stirred something like memories within him and he found he couldn't stop.

* * *

'_Think how you love me,' she whispered. 'I don't ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember.'_

_'You'll always be like this to me.'_

_'Oh no; but promise me you'll remember.' Her tears were falling. 'I'll be different, but somewhere lost inside me there'll always be the person I am tonight."_

* * *

Her laugh rippled through him and reverberated within his stomach. It wasn't a particularly good feeling, as it unsettled him as if birds had taken flight from the branches within him in a flurry, batting their wings. Her laugh was the single most beautiful sound to his ears, hands down. It was definitely Dan Humphrey's favorite sound in the world and he would tell James Lipton that if he were ever interviewed at the Actor's Studio. Not that he ever would be, but at least he would know that answer.

"Stop looking at me that way," she said.

"Like what?" he asked.

"Like you're mesmerized by me," she said with a sly smile.

"What if I am?"

"Well stop it. I prefer it when you play a slyer game than that, Humphrey," she said.

"Oh I know you do," he said and rolled over onto his stomach to match her on their shared picnic blanket. He propped himself up with his elbow and met her dark shades. "The day I agree too easily to accompany you to the next classical exhibit at the Met that we both know I'll concede to, that'll be the day I know I'll lose you for good."

Dan reached forward and peeled her sunglasses from her face, revealing eyes that squinted at the brightness reflecting off the water from the beach. His thumb stroked her temple before he leaned in for a taste of salt on her nude lips. When he pulled away, he caught a glimmer of sadness wash over her face before smiling rather tightly and returning her glasses to her face.

They lay languorously that way for hours more, at peace on the private beach at CeCe's old Hampton house that his dad and Lily inherited. The breeze grazed their backs as Blair studied and marked up dozens of fashion magazines and Dan toiled away at _Anna Karenina_. The waves of the ocean lapped rhythmically and over time, Blair's head made its way over to Dan's chest and rested there.

"This moment right here," Blair murmured after a long, comfortable silence.

"Mmm?" Dan grumbled as the sun washed over his face.

"It's just for you and me," she said and paused. "You know it can't always be like this."

"I know, Blair," he said.

"What I mean is…whatever happens when we get back to the city, think of me now like this. Remember how you looked at me earlier. Can you do that for me?"

"I don't care how you act at dinner with Nate and Serena, Blair."

"Okay," she said sullenly.

Of course Dan knew that she wasn't talking about dinner. She was talking about the day they'd have to face Chuck asking about her upcoming trip to Brazil. Or Chuck coming home. Or anything involving reality. He knew all of this, but for some reason he much preferred to have it out when time was pressing in on them and was absolutely necessary. He didn't much feel like dampening their time together with talk of possible impending doom.

"Alright," he said finally and moved to sit up. Dan reached into his satchel and pulled out an old film camera.

"Oh, please," Blair said and rolled her eyes. "Could you be any more of a stereotype?"

"You asked for it," he said and kneeled above her, bringing the viewfinder to his eye and evaluating the aperture. "And I mean to remember you just as you right this instant. Now, look beautiful," he commanded and snapped the camera at her bashful smile. He loved candids of her. She giggled as he played photographer on the beach, telling her to pose in whatever which way and making love to her through the black and white crystal emulsion of the film.

* * *

_"Riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky, I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again."_

* * *

"Let's go to Philadelphia for the weekend," she rang over the phone.

"Why? You hate Philadelphia," he answered back briskly. Secretly, he loved when she would call and jump right into the conversation. And he loved it even more when her truck full of crazy ideas were the subject of her calls—and he her desired partner in crime.

"I _know _I do. The Main Line likes to think it can match us and has delusions of grandeur, but that doesn't mean the city as a whole has nothing to offer," she chirped back.

"Ok, then. Please tell me you want a cheese steak."

"Ew! Humphrey, I'm insulted and now you're no longer invited," she said and hung up. He could practically see her smile on the other end as he dialed back.

She answered after the first ring and jumped right back in as if she hadn't even interrupted their conversation. "The Rodin Museum," she said.

Dan smiled, catching her drift. "You found it."

"It's no Paris but it's the best we can do on short notice."

Dan and Blair had for years fought over museum exhibits and found that there wasn't one they could mutually enjoy without even the slightest criticism from the other. It had become a game back when they were nineteen and they'd taken it up with ease once again. So when she called and proposed they take a trip to the Rodin museum in Philadelphia, he knew she'd found the one they could both love despite their inherently different tastes. Rodin. The Thinker. The Kiss. It was perfect.

Blair could admire the romanticism within his sculptures and Dan the strain of the muscles and the rawness of the human form in stone and how it twisted and writhed and didn't pose.

He picked her up in his vintage Cadillac convertible Rufus had bought him when his first play opened and insisted they drive the back roads with the top down.

"Ever learn how to drive?" he asked as they rolled down a country road with sprawling acres of elegant farm and pastures on either side.

"No," she said.

"All right, that's that," he said and pulled the car over to the shoulder.

'What are you doing? When we're not moving I can smell the cow in the air," she said and grimaced.

"Come here," he said.

"What?"

"Come sit on my lap," he said. When she hesitated he reached over to her and undid the tie to her head wrap that she wore to keep her hair in place. He adored how Elizabeth Taylor of her it was.

"No thank you very much," she said and stuck up her nose.

"Waldorf. Come on. I'm wearing pants from , I promise you won't get a rash."

She continued to pout but he could tell she was crumbling as he cocked his head and looked at her, amused as ever. Finally, she hoisted herself up and over to the driver's seat.

"Still a lowly brand, but whatever. I like the color," she grumbled of his Nantucket red khakis.

"That-a-girl," he said and pulled her hair back from her neck, nuzzling into it before kissing his way up to her ear.

By the time they made their way back into the city after their weekend excursion, Blair had driven a car. They had held hands as they weaved through the Rodin sculptures. They had dined at Buddakan and ordered room service from the Ritz when they didn't feel like getting dressed. Though their hours at the Rodin museum had proved to be the most peaceful and serene they had yet encountered, their flare for the fight caught them and they made an impromptu visit to the current Van Gogh exhibit at the Museum of Art simply so they could argue over his earlier dark paintings versus his most famous, but nearly incomprehensible last paintings. Their banter, like foreplay, led to bathroom stall sex before leaving.

Now, as the rich summer sunset lingered in the air and the gleaming silver from the tall Manhattan buildings lay before them, and old jazz tunes crooned from the radio, Dan wouldn't dare look at her. He thought if he looked he might hit his peak in life and never be able to find a moment so beautiful again.

But when Charles Trenet's "La Mer" came on the radio and Blair—turned away from him and gazing off into the distance—began to sing the lyrics softly to herself, his head turned.

_La mer  
Au ciel d'ete confond  
Ses blancs moutons  
Avec les anges si purs  
La mer bergere d'azur  
Infinie._

Dan gulped hard, tightening his throat and clenching all of the muscles in his jaw so as not to yield to his eyes' overwhelming urge to well.

* * *

_"In crowded rooms they would form words with their lips for each other's eyes" _

* * *

In the city they were different. In the city they were discreet, restrained. Back to plausible deniability, to rendezvous' at their respective homes and obscure places of interest in Brooklyn or Uptown or elsewhere.

They didn't mind all that much. And they especially didn't mind when they were invited to the same event. Though it wasn't accepted that they could be seen speaking for more than a few polite minutes, it meant that they could steal glances from across whatever crowded room they stood in, between the loitering guests and around the cater waiters.

Each time, they set the mood before arrival, usually with a text, sometimes with some inventive way of delivering a note.

Sometimes a dinner jacket would shift just perfectly so that Dan could spot Blair, holding a drink in her hand and chatting with a friend, and she would stop, just for a moment, and flash him a radiant smile. He'd grin to himself and lower his head, afraid he'd give himself away and when he'd look up again it'd be gone, but her eyes would still follow wherever he was.

At first he was unsure how he should act. These were her people and she had a reputation to uphold and a last name to honor. He would just watch her, waiting for her cue. She would mouth "Hi" at first sighting and he'd mouth, "Hello" right back.

Eventually they could have entire conversations from across the room. She would say, "I love you." He would say, "Beautiful." She, "I hate your tie." He, "Thank you."

He noticed she never smiled this much at events he'd seen her at in the past. Sometimes the mood would be smoldering. Her eyes would burn with mischief and he'd find a text message waiting for him in his pocket that caused him to look on her with more predatory eyes. They'd play cat and mouse then. Every movement intentional, every touch and glance serving in place of the touches they had to save until later.

Dan grew to love any Upper East Side event, now that the hairs on his arms would stand straight up in anticipation and everything seemed alive with electricity and far away as if he were in his own under water world with her. Anything and anyone that stood in between them was merely an obstacle Dan had to hurdle in order to get to her.

In truth, the sex was never as good as after an Upper East Side black tie event.

* * *

_"Things are sweeter when they're lost. I know-because once I wanted something and got it. It was the only thing I ever wanted badly, Dot, and when I got it it turned to dust in my hand."_

* * *

In the winter Nate called and asked if Dan was available for dinner as he was in town for business. Nate has established himself in the business world in London through his mother's connections and had enjoyed relative success, though his job was quite well cushioned. He knew it, and Dan thought it somewhat sad that Nate was the only one who had to find what he loved outside of his work.

He had become the backbone though, ever in touch with Dan, Chuck and Blair and Carter and Serena. Dan remembered all of the times he'd had the urge to call Nate over the past few months and resisted, so he welcomed a hearty dinner of steaks and scotch to warm his insides from the frost.

When Nate called and asked if he could possibly consolidate two of his social dates due to an early departure back to London, Dan wished he would have been able to have his best friend alone, but didn't see the harm.

"It's Blair," Nate added after the fact, and Dan's tongue suddenly felt numb.

"Great, this won't be awkward at all," he said.

"Look, I know you two aren't the best of friends, but how many dinners have you had together before? You're lucky Chuck is in Sydney right now, no shop talk, I promise," Nate said as he chuckled.

At dinner Nate caught up expertly with both Dan and Blair as separate entities. Dan thought it wonderful how close the other two were and how happy they were to be in each other's company after all of these years. Blair told Nate of the new villas in Sao Paulo and in Rio and her new love for Chile and her secret plans to launch her own fashion magazine within the next two to three years.

"And Chuck told me you two were trying to have a baby. I mean, finally! That's great," Nate said and Dan's knife dropped on his plate with an ungraceful clank.

Blair's eyes swept up to Dan before she reached for her gin martini. She raised it towards Nate before taking a sip. "It's true. But we're not quite there yet, thank God," she said.

Dan cleared his throat and scratched at the back of his head. "Not that…not that I'm not, you know, _thrilled_ that you and Chuck Bass are going to procreate and give the world the most diabolical child its ever seen, but how…how is that going to work with your three year plan? For the magazine?"

Nate's brows rose in amusement, as the two had barely interacted directly with each other for the entirety of the dinner.

"Thank you…for the concern, Humphrey, but I believe that's what nannys and assistants are for," Blair said.

An awkward lull veiled the table then, and Nate turned his attention to Dan.

"How about the love life, man? It seems you and I are the only ones holding out. When are you gonna find that one lucky lady and lock it down?"

"Well, you know I'm…" Dan trailed off as he caught sight of Blair in his peripheral. "I'm wondering if I ever really want to get married."

"Don't tell us Serena's runaway bride routine is still a sore spot," Blair said with a roll of her eyes.

"No. _No," _Dan said and shot her an annoyed look. She raised her eyebrows, daring him to say something different.

"But never? I mean, what about 'The One', man? There will be someone you can't let go of, believe me," Nate said.

"I guess all I can say is that I've been through it already. I've found the exact person I would want to be with for the rest of my life. But you know what? I'd rather have let her go, which I did, than try and hold onto her and smother her and watch our relationship wither and die and crumble over the years. At least I know what it feels like to get the one thing I ever wanted. And it may have disintegrated while I was still trying to hold on to it. But I don't mind that much now. It becomes bittersweet. And I guess I kind of like the taste."

Dan reached for his remaining scotch and downed it before pushing back his chair. He stood and buttoned his suit jacket. "I'm sorry, I've gotta…go."

"Wow…" Nate said. "It's been like…six years and he's like that over Serena?"

Blair shrugged. "Their misbegotten nuptials will always be a mystery to me. Probably an attempt to upstage mine and Chuck's."

"I guess," Nate said, confused as Blair's eyes remained transfixed on Dan's back towards her as he waited by the coat check.

* * *

"_And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of. If you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again."_

* * *

"Well played, Waldorf," Dan said.

"And terribly played on your part, Humphrey. You practically lost your marbles right in front of Nate. I expected better of you," she said as she barged into his apartment later that night.

"Sorry I wasn't exactly expecting to hear about your pending procreation."

"Oh, yes. That," she said and rummaged through her bag. She withdrew a plastic sheet of pills and placed them on his counter. Birth control pills.

"Oh, thank God," Dan blurted out with a sigh.

"Hey!" Blair said, swatting him half-heartedly on the arm.

"No…No, what I mean…" Dan scratched his head, looking for the right thing to say. "What I mean is…"

"Ew!" Blair scrunched her nose. "Don't tell me you want to impregnate me, Humphrey."

"Never! No! You…and me and babies, or just babies in general…not something I can picture for you."

Blair's smile tightened and she shrugged. "You don't…think I'd be a good mother."

Dan ground his back teeth together out of frustration, no matter that it accentuated his jaw line just so and made him nearly irresistible to Blair. "No. Fuck why can I never say things the way I want to say them?"

Blair smiled at him but he didn't see it, as Dan was too busy hanging his head in shame and cursing whomever thought it'd be a hilarious joke to gift someone with the power of words that flowed out of a pen—or by way of a keyboard—but could never formulate his prose by way of his vocal chords. Bon mots and quips sure, but meaningful speeches seemed to escape him.

"It's the way of a writer," she said, her cheeks rosy with endearment. "Take your time."

Dan looked up at her and saw her patience in him, her true regard for him and how much she genuinely liked him. No one had ever just…waited with such comfort for him to say something. Something possibly even detrimental to her as the receiver. He wanted to kiss her but he knew he couldn't. He could. But it wasn't the time. He needed her to listen to him now. To really listen to him.

"Blair. I think you'll make a beautiful mother one day if that's ever what you want. And it's ok if you don't. But I have to say something. I love you."

The air in the room suddenly became heavy and stiff with suffocation. Neither was breathing.

"And when I say I love you and that I think you need to divorce Chuck it's not because I'm asking you to be with me. It's not because of me. I'm okay with whatever this thing is that we have. But your marriage is killing you, little by little, everyday. You're secretly popping pills to ensure you don't get pregnant and having affairs with writers while he's building his empire in South America. What kind of life is that, Blair?"

"One," she said.

"What?"

"One writer," she responded and her eyes looked glassy. He could see them clouding with anger, her best defense.

His hands found hers. "Hey hey look at me. Look at me," he whispered. "Don't get mad."

Dan brushed his right hand over her hair and tucked it behind her ear. "I just want to see you live your life exactly how you want to live it. I want you to launch _Tracy Lord_ and I want you to meet people and see everything you haven't seen. I want what you want, Blair. I want it all for you. But I want one thing more than anything. I want you to realize that you can do anything. If that means uprooting your entire life and starting all over again from scratch then I want you to realize you have the strength to do it. You do."

Blair was crying now, silently. Tears spilled down her cheeks but she refused to acknowledge them. Dan lifted her chin up with his index finger and looked deep into her eyes.

"What if I'm not brave enough?" she said and her voice wavered.

"God, you're so brave, darling. So brave," he said and wrapped his arms around her. He let her cry into his shoulder so she could muffle her sobs and hide her face.

* * *

_"So we'll just let things take their course, and never be sorry."_

* * *

"I'm not mad," he said.

"You're mad," she said.

"I'm not surprised," he said.

"I know you're not," she said. "Which is why I know you're mad."

"I just think we should call it a day and not actually have this conversation. We both know exactly how it goes," Dan said into his phone before hanging it up with a simple press of the red button before he could think twice. Had he actually just hung up on Blair Waldorf? He had, and for a second, he could have sworn fear shot right through his thumb, up his arm until it hit his spine.

He wanted to call back. He wanted to call back so badly that he had to physically restrain himself. He clenched his chaw and opened the fridge to make fettuccini alfredo.

She'll call back. The ball's in her court. Her call. She'll call back.

She didn't call back.

He wouldn't call back.

_We need to talk. _Fuck that clichéd opener. He was definitely not calling back.

So there was really only one thing to be done.

When the door opened he expected a doorman. But it was her, in a simple cream silk La Perla slip, her eyes puffy and her cheeks flushed.

"What, you answer the door yourself now?" he said dryly.

"Oh thank God," she said and flung herself at him, arms around neck and all. She kissed him, on his neck and ears and eyelids and cheek and nose before making it to his lips, where she lingered.

After a moment, when she let out a breath, he lifted a shopping bag he had been holding in his left hand, his right around her waist, and said, "I brought food."

They shared a candlelight dinner on her balcony. Ella Fitzgerald crooned softly from the speaker system and a half bottle of Pinot Grigio sat on the table instead of its usual stead in the ice bucket. And only after a few fork fulls, Blair slipped a plane ticket across the table to Dan.

He wouldn't look at it.

She brought her knees up to her chin so her feet tucked under her on her chair before she spoke. He thought it was a very un-Blair like position for her to assume, but he also kind of adored it.

In a very mousy, very soft voice she said, "It's to Brazil. I leave tomorrow."

Dan gulped, creating a pregnant pause in the air, one he'd rather endure than the idea of his voice cracking.

When he spoke he matched her tone. He felt broken. "Why didn't….why didn't you tell me sooner?"

She shrugged. "He surprised me."

Another long pause. He looked down. Finally, pushed his dish away. The sight of food was making him feel sick.

"I won't be a kept man."

"I would never want you to be," she said and he could feel her heart reaching to him in earnest through her words.

"I'll fight for you this time. Say the word."

"I love you, you know that," she said. "But I've experienced how love corrodes. I'm a walking talking example of it. And I don't want to go through it again. It's too painful."

Dan pushed his chair back and stood up, careful not to disturb the quiet, still air they occupied as was the tone of the evening. With the most delicate of maneuvers, he bent down and kissed her forehead. Her eyes fluttered shut as she leaned into it.

"That, my dear Waldorf, is why we are one in the same."

He turned to go.

"You won't say goodbye?"

"Never," he said and hesitated. "Here's looking at you," he added and tapped the sliding door before exiting.

* * *

Dan closed his anthology of Fitzgerald's short stories after his last foray down memory lane. He remembered how he'd sent her torrented files of every classic movie he could think of with an ending like theirs. _Roman Holiday, Gone With the Wind, _and of course, _Casablanca. _

He hadn't heard back. In a way he supposed it was good. They both knew not to draw anything out. She'd stayed in Brazil a while, which was also good, and he got to work. He saw her at a few events when she got back. He saw her at dinner with Nate and when she came to his apartment after. She called him when she left Chuck, and emailed him when she left for a tour of the Mediterranean with Serena.

Dan was flipping through specs of memories from over the years in his mind. The restored 35mm print of _The Philadelphia Story_ he sent her when she opened Tracy Lord. She sent him a first edition of _Anna Karenina _when his first book was published. They lunched once. They lunched when he told her he was going to move to San Francisco. Her smile tightened and he kissed her that day in the coatroom of the restaurant before saying goodbye.

Here and there, they caught glimpses of their lives as they lived them out respectively. And always, Dan was thankful they remained loosely crocheted among family and friends. She didn't come to his wedding. She barely spoke to him until his divorce followed two years later. He didn't care to hear what notable men she had on her arm at galas and mostly turned the other way. There was never much swelling in his chest when he heard from her, nor much tightening or shortness of breath when he did hear about a new relationship. His waters were calm, his course on autopilot.

But now. Now, he felt something stir.

Dan thought. Nineteen. Twenty-Seven. Eight years had gone by then.

Thirty-five. Eight years had gone by now.

They'd only had three weeks. And then three months.

Dan grabbed a pen and paper, scribbled something on it, stuck it on the bound pages of the _Tracy Lord_ issue she'd sent and then did something he never thought he'd do—he tore a page out of a book.

And he was out the door.

* * *

When Blair sat down at her desk with espresso in hand it was 8:15 in the morning. She always required her most urgent mail already be waiting for her so that she could get to respond before the bustle of the day took hold. Her usual routine began, and she casually picked up a leaf of paper before realizing its strangeness. It was a single page, torn from a book with a portion of dialogue highlighted in yellow.

"_At any rate, let us love for a while. For a year or two, you and me. That's a sort of divine drunkenness we could all try." _

Blair read it over and over. She read the page top to bottom for context. She sensed it was Fitzgerald but she couldn't be sure. And anyway, she was too struck by the mysterious delivery to think any harder on the topic.

She pressed her intercom buzzer to her secretary. "Jill, could you come in here?"

Within five seconds, Jill stood before her.

"Do you know what this is?" she asked and held up the page expectantly?

"No ma'am I don't. I was just told it was to be delivered with your priority mail, I'm sorry I can try to find the details."

"Yes, please do," Blair said curtly, unsatisfied. "Now go."

As Jill began to skirt out of the office, a particularly out of place voice carried through to Blair.

"You know, just goes to show these days the mail room isn't what it used to be. They just can't get anything right—"

Humphrey. "Humphrey?"

"—Which is why I figured I should follow up in person. Hello, Blair." He finished in a breath.

And then he was standing there. In front of her, in her office in Manhattan and had strolled in like he'd been there every day for the past three years.

"I don't understand," she said as if she'd seen a ghost, or last year's plaid.

"Well, see it had this post-it on it," Dan began in his usual rambling way and held up a yellow square. "And it was hell getting in to see you for an appointment, like you were the Queen herself. I had to wait until your guard left her post. She's good."

"It's what I pay her for," Blair said.

"Which is excellent, but once again you've managed to ruin my plans, Waldorf. There was supposed to be the note, then the page, then you'd read it, and there would be the light bulb and I'd be waiting and I'd stroll in and it'd all make sense—"

"What's it say?" she interrupted.

"What?"

"What does the note say, Humphrey?"

"Oh. Here." He walked further in to her office to hand it to her with an outstretched arm.

She took it from him and shot him a narrow look, her suspicion and uneasiness with the situation growing.

The note read: _What do you say? XO –Fitz _

Blair sighed. "And how exactly—" she was about to ask how this was supposed to clear things up, but she stopped herself. Dan smiled a sly smile as he saw the wheels in her head turning and the way her brow furrowed with recognition.

Blair remembered the quote. She remembered the article she'd sent him, the way he signed the note and what the note was asking her. What Dan was asking her, right here, right now. Dan! He was in front of her, without calling, without warning, without occasion. His eyes were slightly bloodshot and his shirt slightly wrinkled. He'd taken the redeye from San Francisco. To be here. To hand deliver a ripped page from a book that was asking her to love him.

She looked up, her eyes were wide and filled with knowledge and wonderment and surprise and fear. And he jumped right in.

"Blair," he began.

"Don't," she whispered.

"For sixteen years you've kept me at a distance because you didn't want what happened with you and Chuck to happen to us. And it would have happened to us, you're right. I agree. But I'm in love with you Blair Waldorf. I've been in love with you longer than I've been in love with anyone else in my life and I think it's time for another go around."

Blair smiled through tears, but it fell quickly. "What if we can't give each other up?"

"We've done it twice before. If it's time, it'll be time and we'll know," Dan said as he sauntered slowly over to her. He ran his hands over her bare arms as if to warm them after a cold rain. His brought his lips to her ear and whispered softly. "A year. Or two. You and me," he said.

Her arms wrapped around his neck and she held him close.

"For a while," she said.

Dan smiled.

For a while.

* * *

_Fin._ _(Now talk to me)_


End file.
